


Pebbles and Parcels

by LoveThemFiercely



Series: Drabbles and Prompts [10]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Forgiveness, Gifts, Grief, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Not One Of the Principals, Reylo - Freeform, The Force, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-04
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-10-22 09:52:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17660534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoveThemFiercely/pseuds/LoveThemFiercely
Summary: Ben receives a last gift from his mother.  Rey delivers it.





	Pebbles and Parcels

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a Tumblr Prompt from @orkindofamazing, Hurt/Comfort: "Why Didn't You Tell Me?", Reylo

"Why didn't you tell me?"

 

Rey turned at the voice behind her.  She'd been crying again. It seemed almost as though she did nothing but cry these days, though she supposed that might eventually change.

 

She idly spread the hem of her shirt across the sand and scrub-grass.  He didn't make any noise, like this, but Rey could nonetheless feel him settle beside her in the dirt.  He'd always struck her as someone who didn't have much to do with dirt. Not like her, always covered with sand or mud or grease or something less savory.  But then, he wasn't really touching it now either, was he?

 

"She asked me not to tell you, Ben."  Rey let the words fall, light, knowing they might hurt.  She'd been right, she thought; though a quick indrawn breath was the only outward sign.

 

A pebble floated into the air between them.  "I see. She wouldn't have wanted m--the Order to have information about any weaknesses in Resistance leadership.  That's very sensible. She always was."

 

Rey set her own pebble to chasing his.  "No, that wasn't it. She said...that she didn't want you to feel obligated."  His stone abruptly dropped back to the ground with a dull *thock*. 

 

His voice was rough and strained, inside her mind, grinding like metal on under-oiled metal.  "My obligations lie in entirely different areas. I let those connections fall away a long time ago. She knew that."  His tone smoothed into evenness again, by the end, and the pebble rose to touch hers, just at the edge.

 

Her tiny bit of rock dipped and swung. Rey had already learned better control than this, but the grating sounds and feelings next to her were distracting; resentment, anger, and something else she couldn’t yet identify.  "No, that's not it. I'm not saying it right." What had she said, exactly? "She wanted to be sure that when you came back to us, it wouldn't be for her, but for you." Rey willed him to hear. Leia had said "when", not "if".  And she'd said "us", not the Resistance, not even the Light. Just "us". 

 

He stood and began to pace, pebble following him, bumping against his thigh.  It reminded Rey of the way BB-8 followed Poe around the camp, always just there; but this was just a Force trick and a rock. No one was actually there, where Ben was. 

 

"I couldn't have...I can't...it would have been better to know that she was...ailing, before I felt..."  He bit off the rest of the sentence, but Rey knew what he'd felt. She'd felt it too. "I need to be free of distractions."

 

That was what he said.  What he *felt* was that the hollow where Leia had been had appeared out of nowhere, as though someone had taken an invisible bite out of him; sharp and painful, with a frightening sense that part of him was just gone.

 

Rey sighed. "Ben, sit."  He continued pacing. She patted the ground beside her.  "Please."

 

A huff of breath.  But he sat.

 

Rey arranged herself as though she were going to meditate, hands on her knees.  "She gave me something." A sharp turn of his head set his hair to falling over his eyes.  He pushed it impatiently to the side, searching to see what she might have brought with her.

 

Rey shook her head.  "It's not like that. Sit.  Like this. You remember how."  Ben didn't like to be reminded of his training, she could see.  But he complied. That was good, because she wasn't sure how, or even if, she could do this.

 

But she would try, for Leia.  And for Ben. "Give me your hands."

 

His fingers twitched in surprise.  Wordlessly, he removed his gloves and laid his hands atop hers.  Rey hadn't been entirely certain that would work; his footsteps hadn't made any noise here, and the dusty breeze hadn't ruffled his hair.  But his palms were warm and solid, and a little damp, almost as though this made him as nervous as it did her. He closed his eyes.

 

Rey reached for the space where Leia's gift lay.  There was really no other way to describe it. Leia's mind had been an orderly, beautiful place, even at the last; and her final message for Ben was literally a gift.  Its place in Rey's mind was a small box, covered in brilliant blue cloth, or something, with a green ribbon that looked soft to the touch. She'd had to explain to Rey, in a burst of memory, what that meant.  There hadn't been a lot of gift-giving on Jakku. Rey held out the box to Ben, and knew the moment that he could see it too.

 

His grip tightened painfully on her fingers.  

 

In their shared vision, the ribbon unwound itself from its careful coils, and the wrapping unfolded.  Ben hesitated. Rey's hands were going numb to the wrist; but that was outside, and it wasn't important just now.

 

The lid rose, seemingly of its own accord, and hovered next to the open box in the not-place where it lay.  The contents weren't something that Ben could hold. 

 

Elegant hands, strong, combed through his hair, plaiting and unbraiding it as he  dreamed, drowsy against white skirts. A spicy smell drifted in the air as his small fingers, in turn, undid the complex patterns in long, shining locks, setting each jeweled pin and piece carefully on the table next to them.  That scent meant home. A tune, humming through a darkened room. Rey knew that melody; she'd heard it, in unguarded moments near the end, though roughened by time and a new frailty. A lullaby, she knew with a stab of some emotion that wasn't hers.  A much younger Leia, face in her hands, cried bitterly into the silence of a well-loved ship as a familiar form, stern and bearded, stood next to a dark-haired boy, both figures receding as the ship rose reluctantly into the air. 

 

The last of the gifts wasn't even as tangible as those that had gone before; but it was the most important, Rey knew.  A tangle of feelings, woven together like a braid, made themselves known. Hurt and anger and sadness, yes; but threaded through them were others.  Love, and hope, and finally, forgiveness. Rey had felt those, had felt her depart with his face before her eyes and his name on her lips, the pain between them released, leaving him free to someday do the same.

 

A gust of wind threw grit across Rey's face, bringing her back to the world. They'd leaned forward, both of them, until his brow and hers were pressed together.  He was cold. Tears streamed noiselessly down his face, as though they weren't really part of him at all. The only other sign of what had happened was the smallest of quivers at his jaw, felt more than seen.  Who would have known he still had so much love, mixed with all the rest? Enough to wound.

 

Ben followed her back to the world at a slower pace, and immediately let go of her hands, which were flushed red and drained white now with the pressure.  His began to tremble as soon as they were free, and his shoulders followed suit; but he didn't make a sound, eyes still closed. Rey flexed her hands to bring the blood back where it belonged.

Pebbles, jagged and polished, whirled through the air around them as his hands slowly rose and met behind her back; Rey could hear the stones, small at first and then larger, clashing together, hitting the metal of the rusting shed a few yards away, knocking against nearby trees with a sound like rain.  A few of them, out of control, impacted his shoulders and back, veering away to join the maelstrom again; but none of them touched her at all. 

 

She reached for him.  It was what Leia had done, in her way, and Rey could do no less. Her sobs sounded in the air for them both as she put her arms around him, ignoring the stiff way he held himself, as if against the possibility of further pain.  Rey spoke to the the storm she could sense inside him, the grief she hadn't understood he could still feel.

"Why didn't you tell me?" She answered herself with their pain. "It's all right. I know now, Ben.  I know."

**Author's Note:**

> Not where I thought that was going, but there you have it.


End file.
